Keith sprayed weed killer in the plot of ground I have designated for a new flower bed.  It worked just fine, weeds and grass wilting and disappearing over the next week or so until it was completely bare.  We had a warm spell just before Christmas and I just noticed that a spot or two of green has erupted, even more obvious in the black ground surrounding it.  What are they?  Florida betony, a ground cover that spreads through a web-like array of white roots. 
            I think there are two lessons here—when you take out all the bad in your life, you had better fill it up with good fast or you will just have more room for evil to flourish.  Jesus told his own parable about that—the house that was swept clean and the demons who moved into it, Matt 12:43-45.
            But did you know this?  “Weed killer” is really a misnomer.  It is “plant killer--herbicide”  Most of those sprays cannot differentiate between one green thing and another.  They don’t look for dollar weed and avoid the petunias.  You have to be careful with the weed killer.
            Too often we are not as careful as we should be when spraying the spiritual weed killer.  In our zeal to rid the world of false teaching and sin, we can do a fine job of killing the new plants too.  Just as a policeman is taught to be careful of who is standing behind the fleeing criminal before he shoots, we must be careful of innocent bystanders who may be caught in the crossfire. 
            Knowledge carries with it great responsibility in how we use it.  Too often it comes with a lack of experience and wisdom and that ice cold new term, collateral damage, becomes a frightening reality to young souls.  How are we any different from the wolves when our zeal leaves bloodied and broken lambs lying around us in a heap?  Many times what is passed off as zeal is simply a selfish desire to look knowledgeable and strong in the faith.  Even Satan used the scriptures for his own purposes.  Jesus also told a parable about leaving the weeds in the field because they had become so entangled it would have killed the wheat to pull them out, Matt 13:24-30.  He had to restrain his workers who were anxious to go out and rid the world of the enemy regardless who else was hurt.
            None of which is to say that even the wise will never make a mistake.  Knowing when to do what can be a difficult call to make.  Usually the ones who criticize, though, are the ones who sit back and do nothing when the wolves enter the flock, never placing themselves and their decisions at risk
            Just think about this today: be careful with the weed killer.  At times, when Keith needed to use it in spite of new plants already growing nearby, he has used shields over the tender shoots and reached in closer than usual to the weeds so that he could better control his aim. 
            Always be careful with the word of God.  It’s powerful stuff.
 
And he said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come; but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were well for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble. Luke 17:1,2.
 
Dene Ward

We lived on five acres for 38 years, but did not have the equipment to handle it sometimes.  Most everything we accomplished has been with a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and Keith’s strong back.  We certainly didn’t have a tractor to keep it manicured properly.     
            We decided a few years ago that we had rather see some splashes of color here and there instead of waist high green grass and assorted head high weeds, so we planted several cans of mixed wildflower seeds around the perimeter of the mown section.  The first year they did not do much, but the second year we had a nice showing of coreopsis, gaillardia, and gloriosa daisies.  They come up again every spring and have even spread out into the field in a few places.
            Four summers ago I started cutting the deadheads and scattering them around.  I thought it might be nice to have some up by the gate to greet our guests and scattered a few up there.  The next year I had two orange firewheels, the more colloquial name for gaillardia.  The year after that we had about six.  Last year I quit counting at 20.  They were so thick it was hard to tell exactly how many there were—we’re talking plants, not blooms, which were many times more than 20.  I can hardly wait to see what happens this year.
            You’ve seen deadheads. They are gray or brown, shriveled and dried up.  You would never think they had once been beautiful blooms or were any longer valuable at all.  But “deadhead” is a most inaccurate name for them.  Inside those ugly old blooms lay the potential for thousands more beautiful blooms.
            Have you looked in the mirror lately?  Some of you are a lot younger than I, but no matter how young you are, you are not as young as you used to be.  Someday you will be my age, and most of you will get even older than that.  It’s easy these days, especially facing a major disability, to think that I am no longer useful in the kingdom.  It’s easy to say that since I might not be able to get out much any more, that I cannot serve.  When you grow older, you will face the same feelings.  If you are older, you may be facing them already.
            But that is not the case.  Just like those dried up flowers, you have the potential to reach thousands through your example.  Maybe the only example you are able to give any more is faithfulness—but it is a powerful one, and always needed.  You are there when the doors of the meetinghouse are opened if you can drag yourself out at all.  Sometimes you are there when you ought not to be. You have been married for 40, 50, 60 years to the same husband or wife, and the devotion between you is still obvious.  You sit quietly and never cause any trouble.  In Bible classes you make comments that show you have lived by the scriptures.  You have children who are faithful to God, to their mates, to the body of Christ, and who are good citizens of this earthly country as well.  Do you think none of that counts?
            If you are young, you need to start making good use of these resources.  Too many times the young are stuck in the self-centered ways of youth, forgetting that older Christians have lived a life every bit as interesting as theirs.  Get them to talking sometime about their past.  You just might be amazed at what they have been through and survived; things you will probably never face in these prosperous times.   And you will find one of the helps God always intended you to have—the wisdom of the aged.  I have learned more valuable lessons from quiet people with halos of silver hair than from any pulpit preacher I have ever listened to—and I have heard some pretty good ones.
            Setting an example is not something we have a choice about.  As long as we are alive we do just that.  And it may be the most powerful thing any of us do.  You are never shriveled, dried up and useless as far as God is concerned.  You are always sowing seeds.  Be sure you sow the right ones.
 
The hoary head is a crown of glory; it shall be found in the way of righteousness, Prov 16:31
 
Dene Ward 

My back and feet were aching and my hands cramped from peeling by the time I finished.  The seals on the pint jars of apple butter popped and I started the clean-up of unused jars and lids, the large pot covered with sticky residue, and the measuring cups and spoons.  Finally it was over. 
            The apple tree had borne far more than ever before.  I had made several pies, a couple dozen muffins and a cake, and canned two dozen quarts of applesauce, a gallon of apple juice, a dozen pints of apple jelly, half a dozen quarts of apple pie filling, and finally a half dozen jars of apple butter.
            As I stood over a sink full of soapy water I muttered, “I hope I never see another apple as long as I live.”  The next spring my apple tree died.
            When it became apparent that we couldn’t save the tree, Keith looked at me and muttered something about not really knowing what that might mean—the fact that I could curse a tree and it up and die for no obvious reason so soon afterward.  Just exactly who, or what, was he married to?
            The county agent saved my reputation.  The tree was planted too close to an oak, he said.  Oaks carry a disease that kills fruit trees, especially apples and peaches.  Sure enough, we soon lost our peach tree too.
            All these years later, the story came up again, and with it a new perspective.  Here I had cursed a tree that bore too much, while the Lord cursed one that bore too little. 
            And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it.  And as they passed by it in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered to its roots, Mark 11:13,14,20.
            You might do as I did at first and wonder why the Lord would expect to find figs when it wasn’t fig season.  Yet every commentator I read said that figs produce their fruit before they leaf out.  When the Lord saw a fig tree fully leafed out, he had every right to expect to see some fruit, even if it was small and green.  As a gardener I know that nearly every plant has at least one “early-riser”—a tomato or pepper or blueberry that ripens before the others.  Even if there was nothing ripe, there should have been plenty of fruit hanging there, gradually ripening on the leafy branches.
            Now how about us?  Is anything ripening on our branches?  Is the fruit of the Spirit perhaps still a little green, but nonetheless visible as we become more and more what he would have us be?  Or are we nothing but leafy show: lots of pretty clothes on Sunday morning but behavior like the rest of the world throughout the week?  Lots of talk in Bible class, but no good works in the community?  Quoting catchphrases to our neighbors, but never opening the Book in our own homes?  More concerned with winning arguments than winning souls?
            The Lord will come looking for figs in our lives, more than likely at a season in which we are not expecting him.  He told us we would recognize false teachers by their fruits (Matt 7:16-20).  What will he recognize about us from ours or will there even be any for him to see?
 
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, Col 1:9,10.

Dene Ward
             

Growing tomatoes can be easy, but if you must deal with poor soil instead of rich loam, it isn’t.  If you have bacteria-infected soil, it isn’t.  If blights, mildews, and fungi abound, it isn’t.  If the insects rise in swarms every time you bump a plant, it isn’t.  We have all of the above, so growing tomatoes here in our sub-tropical “paradise” is certainly not easy.
            Every year a few of our plants grow to about a foot’s height, then stop.  Their leaves curl and they never set a bloom.  They remain green and don’t die outright, but they don’t grow and they don’t produce fruit.  We call them the “frizzled plants” because of the curled leaves and the stunted growth.  If we are not careful, our spiritual growth can be stunted in the same way.
            Listening and considering new ideas is imperative to spiritual growth, to improving our attitudes and characters.  Keith has actually come across a couple of people who have told him, “Even if you could show me in the Bible where I’m wrong, I wouldn’t change.  I’m comfortable where I am.”  A comfort zone is prime territory for stunted growth.  What do you do but sit there and watch their leaves curl?
            Others have a pride issue.  They can’t possibly be wrong about anything.  Hear the sarcasm in Job’s voice as he deals with his so-called friends: “No doubt you are the [only wise] people, and wisdom will die with you,” 12:2.  When people will not listen to anyone else, they will only grow as far as their own knowledge will reach, and then stop.
            Parents can stifle growth when they view differing opinions as disrespect.  Even parents who don’t mean to do so are used as an excuse not to listen.  “But my daddy said…”  Don’t you think Daddy had enough personal integrity to change his mind if someone showed him he was in error?
            Indifference can stunt your growth.  In fact, it is a wonder some people managed to germinate a seed at all, much less grow enough to look at least a little like a Christian.  Their apathy prevents them from getting any farther.
            Wealth can strangle you so that the seed never receives the nourishment it needs. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. Mark 4:19.
            Immaturity, which Paul repeatedly calls carnality in 1 Corinthians, can stunt your growth.  When you are concerned about the wrong things and your perspective is distorted, when you can’t see beyond the instant gratification of things, status and the opinion of others, you will never comprehend the true necessities of spiritual life.  You certainly won’t grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
            We need to look at ourselves and the things that matter most to us.  Examine your spiritual growth in the past year or two.  Can you see a difference, or are you still sitting in exactly the same place with curled leaves and no fruit on your limbs?  Are you stretching those limbs upward, or do they droop to the earth, where the only things that matter to you happen to be?
            What is getting in the way of your growth?  Don’t be a frizzled tomato plant.
 
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of Jehovah; And on his law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also doth not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. Psalms 1:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

We kept seeing them on the side of the road—two to three feet high, blue flowers clustered at the top of tall stems with long narrow leaves.  We called them wild irises because that’s what they looked like, and I wished aloud that we had some.  So Keith stopped one afternoon on the way home from work and dug up a few.  I looked them up in my wildflower book and found their true name—spiderwort.  What an ugly name, I thought, and called them my wild irises instead. 
            Then we learned about them.  They spread faster than anything we had ever planted, in places we really didn’t want them, but the worst was this—they were only beautiful early in the morning or right after a rain.  Otherwise those blooms turned black and ugly by noon, earlier in the heat of summer.  If ever there was a fair weather flower, this was it. 
            Just as I misjudged the beauty of those wildflowers, I fear that some of us may be mistaken about how God judges our beauty.  Dressing up on Sunday morning is not what matters to God.  Having a tie on is not what makes a man worthy to serve at the Lord’s Table.  While I dress carefully on Sundays, one of the few times I get to wear a pretty dress these days, it has little to do with whether God thinks I am beautiful.  To God, beauty is seen in faithfulness, in righteous and holy lives, and in kindness shown to others.  In many cases, we don’t look particularly pretty while doing those things. 
            We never look better to God than when we are bruised and bloody from a fight with Satan, battered from overcoming the temptation to sin.  We are pretty when we are clad in old clothes cleaning up after our families, and handsome when plastered with sweat and dirt from doing the yard work for a widow.  We are lovely to God when we sit around in our old blue jeans talking about the Bible to a friend who asked a question, or inviting a neighbor to a Bible study.  We are beautiful to Him when our bodies are thin and our eyes sunken from facing an illness that came only because so many years ago the Devil succeeded with Adam, yet we face it with trust in a God who has a plan.  We are especially gorgeous to Him when our bodies are old and bent, and our hair gray and thin, having lived a life of faithfulness.
            Spiderworts are pretty only when things are easy, only when life is fun.  When that’s over, they live up to their name—black and ugly, a weed everyone could do without.  Don’t make God feel that way about you.
 
I am faint and sore bruised: I have groaned because of the tumult of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before you; And my groaning is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me: As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague; And my kinsmen stand afar off… in you, O Jehovah, do I hope: You will answer, O Lord my God.  Psa 38:8-11,15.
 
Dene Ward

Several years ago I received a pot of rust colored chrysanthemums as a gift.  I enjoyed them for many days before they began to fade.
            “Well that’s that,” I thought as I placed them on the outside workbench so Keith could salvage the dark green plastic pot for other uses.  By the time he got to them, they were brown and withered, as dead looking as any plant I had ever seen.
            Keith cannot stand to throw things away.  “It might come in handy,” he always says as he pulls things out of the trash.  That is why he stuck those dried out flowers in the ground beneath the dining room window.  Yet even he was amazed when a few days later green leaves sprouted on those black stems.  It was fall, a mum’s favorite season, and before long I had twice as many as I had started with.
            Fast forward to Thanksgiving, a year later.  I now had a bed full of rust colored mums about two feet square.  The next year the bed was four feet wide and my amaryllises were swamped.  Keith built a raised bed about eight feet square, half of it for the mums and the rest for a plumbago, a miniature rose, and a blue sage.  That has lasted exactly one year.  The plumbago, rose, and sage have been evicted by the mums and need a new home.
            What started as one six inch pot of mums, withered and brown, has become 64 square feet of blooms so thick they sprawl over the timbers of the raised bed into the field surrounding it.  Whenever I cut an armful for a vase inside, you cannot even tell where I cut them. 
            We often fall prey to the defeatist attitude, “What can one person do?” Much to the delight of our Adversary we sit alone in the nursery pot, wither, and die.  Yet the influence we have as Christians can spread through our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our communities.  The good deeds we do, the moral character we show, the words we do—and don’t—say make an impression on others.  Those are the seeds we plant, never giving in to the notion that one person cannot accomplish anything.  The attitudes we show when mistreated and the peace with which we face life’s trials will make others ask, “Why?  Can I have this too?  How?”
            Plant a seed every chance you get.  If a six inch pot of dried up mums can spread so quickly, just think what the living Word of God shown through your life can accomplish.
 
And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God?  Or in what parable shall we set it forth?  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth,  yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof, Mark 4:30-32.
 
Dene Ward

In this part of Florida, summer begins in May.  The hot sun has traveled north and once again crosses directly over the house instead of the field.  The spring blooms have faded long ago—no more yellow jessamine cascading over the trellis, no more azaleas jacketed with blooms in every shade of pink and purple, no more jasmine sending out heavy clouds of sweet fragrance.  Now it's simply too hot.
            But—the blueberries are ready to be picked.  When we had our little blueberry patch we went out every other morning, plastic bucket in hand, and picked.  Before five minutes were up, I could feel the first prickles on my scalp and in the next five, the perspiration started rolling out of my hair.  Did I say it was hot?  But it was certainly worth it.
            At first, only a few were ripe enough, barely dusky blue, and we might have enough to throw in a bowl of cereal, or, if I saved them for three or four days, a batch of muffins or pancakes.  By the second week, things had improved and blueberry pie or a crisp was in the works.  By the end of the season we were loading up quart size plastic tubs and putting them in the freezer.  We usually pulled the last tub out sometime around March of the following year.  Blueberries almost all year long!
           Why didn't we pick them all at once, you ask?  Actually, you probably know the answer to that.  You only pick the ripe ones and they do not ripen all at the same time.  That's one reason it takes so long to pick.  You have to go limb by limb, berry by berry, in order to get the best.  There is a word for that—oddly enough, it's called "cherry-picking" because, I presume, when you pick cherries you do it exactly the same way, limb by limb, cherry by cherry, only picking the ones you really want.
            If we aren't careful, we do the same thing with the Bible.  We cherry-pick the commands we want to obey and ignore the rest.  They don't count.   They aren't important.   Whatever the metaphor might be for "ripe."  You think we would never do such a thing?  Let me show you a few.
            None of us would neglect Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; 1 Pet 3:21 would we?  In fact, I bet you don't even need to look those up.  You already know that they refer to the command to be baptized.  Of course we need to be baptized.
            But the same God who commanded baptism also said, "Husbands love your wives as your own body" (Eph 5:28) and "Live with your wives in an understanding way, giving her honor…" (1 Pet 3:7). 
           The same who God who said, "Wives submit to your own husbands" (Eph 5:22) also said "[Everyone] submit to one another" (Eph 5:21) and "We who are strong have an obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves" (Rom 15:1). 
            The same God who said we should partake of the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week when we are gathered together (Acts 20:7) also said we are to "Sing and make melody to the Lord" (that's each individual) (Eph 5:19). 
         The same God who said, "Preach the Word" (2 Tim 4:2) also said, "Withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly" (2 Thes 3:6).
           Or as James the Lord's brother put it, the same God who said, "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not commit adultery" also said we should not show bias toward another human being (James 2:8-11). 
            Now tell me we are not guilty occasionally of "blueberry-picking" among God's commands.  Usually it's something we want to excuse ourselves from because it is not as pleasant, not as easy, and might cause us embarrassment or even inconvenience.  Perhaps it means we will have to totally change our attitudes about what devotion to God really means.
           It's easy really.  If He said it, do it.  That's the way His child should obey.  Not judging his law as if we have the right to decide what is and is not important.  We cannot run to Matthew 23 and the Pharisees either.  See what Jesus said to them:  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (Matt 23:23).  Yes, some commands are "weightier" than others, but Jesus said, you do them both, not leave one undone because you don't want to do it—because that's what it really boils down to.
           God never meant us to go blueberry picking with His Law.  He just wants us to obey it.
 
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it (Jas 2:10).
 
Dene Ward
 

I had an up close and personal encounter with a wildflower a couple of years ago.  When we plant a new bed out in the field, we baby it the first year.  The point is for them to grow up scattered in the grasses and among other wildflowers in a natural way, but if you don’t get them off to a good start, they won’t stand a chance with all the competition out there for ground space and rainwater.
            So I was weeding the latest patch, which we had let go far beyond the normal time span.  I had difficulty even finding some of the small plants amid all the waist high grass and weeds.  I had nearly finished, was soaking wet and black up to my elbows, when I noticed one more low-growing weed and bent over to pull it.  I did not see the bare stalk of the wildflower right between my feet, leafless and flowerless, standing three feet high.  I did not know it was there until, as I bent over, it slid right into my eye like a hot wire.  Which eye?  The one which most lately has been operated on, the one with the shunt, the capsular tension ring, and the silicone lens, the one that already hurts the most. 
            The doctor and I spent nearly two weeks fixing me up after this little mishap, checking to see if there was any permanent damage, checking to see if the shunt had been knocked out of place, checking for infection, and worse, for plant fungus.  As it turns out, all I had was a hematoma and a laceration, but it was an exciting couple of weeks.
            That was too close and personal an encounter with a flower, but we can never be too close and personal with God.  I have had to learn that.  The prevailing sentiment many years ago seemed to be that we did not want to do or say anything that might make someone apply a religious pejorative to us indicating belief in something other than correct Bible teaching about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  Instead of saying, “I’m blessed,” instead of saying, “God took care of me,” indeed, instead of attributing anything to the providence of God, we said, “I’m lucky.”  We wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea, would we?
            Where did we come up with that?  Read some of David’s psalms.  He gave God the credit for everything.  Read Hannah’s song, or Moses and Miriam’s after crossing the Red Sea.  Since when don’t the people of God tell everyone what God has done for them?
            Read some of Paul’s sermons.  He does not seem a bit concerned that someone might use what he says to give credence to false teaching.  “You know that idol you have out there?” he asks the Athenians, “the one to the Unknown God?  Let me tell you about him.”  He tells Felix, But this I confess to you that after the Way which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our fathers, Acts 24:14.  It didn’t matter a bit what people called it, as long as he could talk about it.  In fact, he used their misconceptions as opportunities to preach the Gospel.
            Maybe that is my problem—I don’t want to talk about it.  It makes me uncomfortable.  It has nothing to do with whether someone gets the wrong idea about the Truth, but everything to do with me feeling ill at ease, or downright embarrassed.  I don’t want to be called a religious fanatic and certainly not a “Holy Roller!”  Yes, I want a close, personal relationship with God, as long as no one else knows about it.
            But here is the deal:  If I am too embarrassed by my relationship with God to even acknowledge it, then He won’t acknowledge me either, and I am the one with everything to lose. 
            Go out there today and say or do something that will make someone else curious enough to ask you a question.  Then open your mouth and unashamedly tell them how wonderful an up close and personal relationship with your Creator and Savior really is.
 
Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in Heaven.  But whoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in Heaven, Matt 10:32,33.
 
Dene Ward

My husband never knew this and now he will be impossible to live with on this day, demanding tomatoes at every meal, as well as snacks and desserts as a celebratory measure.  April 6th is National Fresh Tomato Day.  For 40 years he has planted enough tomatoes in our garden to feed the entire county.  To his credit, he has shared probably a literal ton with church members, neighbors, piano students, and doctors.  His favorite thing in the world is a platter of the things sliced several inches deep on the dinner table every night for as long as the season lasts.  And that means I have to do something with the ones that don't fit on that platter before they go bad.  So while the boys were still home, I canned forty quarts or more every year, plus a few pints of tomato sauce, plus tomato juice, and once or twice, even some ketchup and tomato jam.  All of those things involved a huge amount of work.
            Canning tomatoes is one of the more difficult garden season chores.  You wash each and every tomato.  You scald each and every tomato.  You pound ice blocks till your arms ache in order to shock and cool each and every scalded tomato.  You peel each and every tomato and finally you cut up each and every tomato.  Then you sterilize jars, pack jars, and process jars.  Only 7 jars fit in the canner at a time, so you go through that at least 6 times for canned tomatoes alone.
            And you will have more failures to seal with canned tomatoes than any other thing you can.  As you pack them in, pushing down to make room, you must be very careful not to let the juice spill over into the threads of the jar.  And just in case you did that heinous crime, you take a damp cloth and wipe each thread of each jar.  Tomato pulp will keep a perfectly good jar, lid, and ring from sealing.
            In order to have that many tomatoes you must be willing to cut up a few that are half-rotten, disposing of the soft, pulpy, stinky parts in order to save sometimes just a bite or two of tomato.  Now that there are only two of us, I usually limit myself to 20+ quarts.  I still put one in every pot of spaghetti sauce, one in every pot of chili, and one in every pot of minestrone, as well as a few other recipes, it’s just that I don’t make as many of those things as I did with two big boys in the house.  Now I can afford to be a little profligate.  If I pick up a tomato with a large bad spot, I am just as likely to toss the whole thing rather than try to save the bite or two that is good, especially if it is a small tomato to begin with.  Why go to all that work—washing, scalding, shocking, peeling, cutting up, packing—for a mere teaspoon of tomato?
            But isn’t that what God and Jesus did for us?  For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. Matt 7:14.
            The Son of God, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Phil 2:6-8.  And he did that for a half—no!--for a more than half rotten tomato of a world.  He did that to save a remnant, a mere teaspoon of souls who would care enough to listen and obey the call. 
            Sometimes, by the end of the day, when my arms are aching, my fingers are nicked and the cuts burning from acidic tomato juice, my back and feet are killing me from standing for hours, and I am drenched with sweat from the steamy kitchen, I am ready to toss even the mostly good tomatoes, the ones with only a tiny bad spot, because it means extra work beyond a quick slice or two.  Aren’t you glad God did not feel that way about us?  It wasn’t just a half rotten world he came to save, it was every half rotten individual in that world, of which you and I are just a few.
 
But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. Rom 11:4-5
 
Dene Ward
 

National Carrot Day was begun in 2003 in an effort to increase awareness of the beneficial compounds of carrots.  I am told it is celebrated around the world with carrot parties, featuring carrot dishes and guests dressed in orange or in some cases in carrot costumes.
            Carrots do far better up north than down here in Florida.  Whether it's the climate or the lack of nutrition in the sandy soil, I don't know, but we seldom bother planting them.  One year we did though, planting them late by Florida standards, so I was just pulling carrots the first week of June.  It wasn’t difficult; I pulled the whole row in about 15 minutes.  Still, it was disappointing—a twenty foot row yielded a two and a half gallon bucket of carrots that turned into a two quart pot when they were cleaned and sorted, cutting off the tops and tossing those that were pencil thin or bug-eaten.
            Then I thought, well, consider the remnant principle in the Bible.  Out of all the people in the world, even granting that the population was much less than it is now, only eight were saved at the Flood.  Out of all the nations in the world, God only chose one as His people.  Out of all those, only one tribe survived the Assyrians, and out of all those, only a few survived the Babylonians and only 42,000 of those returned to the land out of the 1,000,000 or so in Babylon.  What's that?  4.2%?
            Jesus spoke of the wide gate and the narrow gate.  Surely that tells us that though God wishes all to be saved, only a few will be.  So out of a twenty foot row of carrots, I probably threw out half.  Then we threw out a third of those that were too small to even try to scrub and peel.  Yet we probably did better with our carrots than the Lord will manage with people!  And I learned other principles that carrot-pulling day, too.
            When I pulled those carrots some of them had full beautiful tops, green, thick-stemmed, and smelling of cooked carrots when I lopped them off.  Yet under all that lush greenery several had very little carrot at all.  They were superficial carrots—all show and no substance.  Others were pale and bitter, hardly good for eating without adding a substantial amount of sugar.  Then under some thin, sparse tops, I often found a good-sized root, deep orange and sweet.  Yes, they were all the same variety, but something happened to them in the growth process.
            Some of us are all top and no root.  It always surprises me when a man who is so regular in his attendance has so little depth to his faith.  Surely sitting in a place where the Word is taught on a consistent basis should have given him something, even if just by osmosis.  But no, it takes effort to absorb the Word of God and more effort to put it into practice, delving deeper and deeper into its pages and considering its concepts.  The Pharisees could quote scripture all day, but they lacked the honesty to look at themselves in its reflection.
            And there are some of us who have little to show on the outside, but a depth no one will know until a tragedy strikes, or an attack on the faith arises, or a need presents itself, and suddenly they are there, standing for the truth, showing their faith, answering the call.  I knew one man who surprised us all with his strength in the midst of trial, a quiet man hardly anyone ever noticed.  Yet his steadfastness under pressure was remarkable.  I knew another who had been loud with his faith, nearly boasting in his confidence that he was strong, yet who shocked us all with his inability to accept the will of God, his assertions that he shouldn’t have to bear such a burden when he had been so faithful for so long.  Truly those carrot tops will fool you if you aren’t careful.  “Judge not by appearance,” Jesus said, “but judge righteous judgment.”  Look beneath those leafy greens and see where and how your root lies.
            Evidently the principles stand both for man and carrots.  Don’t count on your outward show, your pedigree in the faith.  Develop a deep root, one that will grow sweeter as time passes and strong enough to stand the heat of trial. 
            And don’t assume you are in the righteous remnant if that righteousness hasn’t been tested lately.  God hates more to throw out people than I hate to throw out carrots, but He will.  Don’t spend so much time preening your tops that your root withers.  And finally, only a few will make it to the table; make sure you are one of them.
 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20            
 
Dene Ward